What's your sharpening rig?

I’ve lately gotten into hand planes. I only have a couple, but I can make curly chips with the best of you. I have been using an ancient stone to sharpen my blades, but I have one blade that needs to be completely ground down to a good clean edge. It has several level spots on the cutting edge which bring it through several angles. This is not good.

What I want to do is come up with a system, at little to no cost, for grinding and sharpening my blades.

Here’s what I’m considering.

I’m looking for a hand crank grinder that mounts on any bench. This will be the grinder. with it I can put a good clean edge on the cutting side of the blade. I’ll need some sort of jig to hold it at the proper angle.

Next I think I’ll invest in a 1000 stone and use my TS as a guide with a jig, and cut a block of wood at the proper angle, then clamp the wood to the blade and use the jig to run the blade over the stone in the slot on my TS.

Is the grinder a good investment?Should I just get coarse, medium and fine stones and use them?Where is a good place to find jigs for holding the blades?

-- A positive attitude will take you much further than positive thinking ever will.

I am pretty new to hand planes myself. I started out sharpening the blades using a MK II Veritas honing guide. I used the scary sharp sandpaper system for a few weeks then bought a set of waterstones. The MK II honing guide is good for a person that might not have the physical dexterity for holding a plane iron at the correct angle while while sharpening/honing. But personally, I think it is a waste of money for anyone without physical limitations.. You can do the same thing with a block of wood cut at a 25 degree angle and use it to get the feel for holding the iron at the proper angle. It might take a while but once you get the feel for holding the iron and working it on the honing material, you will be forever liberated from all the bullshit grinding/honing systems that companies love to pimp out. Once you know that you have the initial bevel down pact, all it takes is a slight bump of the pinkie to get the micro bevel.

A grinder is a good tool for conditioning a damage blade. A good tool rest wood be far more important than a holding jig.. A fine to medium grinding wheel will do most anything you need to shape the blade.

I mix my sharpening systems at this point. I use a grinder for a damaged blade to square it up. Blades with minor imperfections can be conditioned with 150 or 220 sand paper. After that I will work it on 1000, 4000, and 8000 waterstones. After you have a good working blade, you really only need the finer grits to hone the micro bevel.

There are some many options out there and all work well. After a couple years of trying different systems I choose to settle with a Jet slow speed water sharpening system for the initial grind or regrind and 6000 & 12000 ceramic water stones for honing. Not to messy, quick and fast. I use a MK2 honing jig on my plane blades. Good Luck.

I’ve used my belt sander platen to clean up chipped or uneven chisels, then scary sharp method with success. Probably appalling to some of you, but it works great if you don’t let the steel ever get hot – just short passes. I’ve never done it with a wide planer blade. I think spending hundreds of dollars on sharpening systems and then hundreds more on tools to service the sharpening system is a bit much, for my wallet anyway.